Yes, public opinion has shifted on other issues like climate change (still undecided, here) and gay marriage (ain't the government's business in the first place).

What the current Idiot in Chief further chooses to miss is that attitudes on guns have been changing too, just not in the direction he'd like.

It's very simple, folks. Concentrating extensive power in a centralized governing authority comes at the cost of surrendering basic economic, political, and a civil freedoms. To suggest that it wouldn't "happen here" is both naive and indicative of a mental disease or defect.

So look at the subtext. When mayors start getting city councils to pass restrictive local laws, you end up with a patchwork of regulations and vast inconsistencies from one city or county to the next. In California we already deal with that reality, and it's getting worse. Have a CA CCW? Can't carry certain ammo in San Francisco. Own pre-ban standard capacity magazines and live in Sunnyvale? Sorry, you have to move or get rid of them. But, everyone outside of Sunnyvale can keep them. Passing through Sunnyvale with your pre-ban magazines? Don't get pulled over. What was legal 100 yards behind you is now a misdemeanor, because of an administrative border you just crossed.

So, make compliance hard enough and a couple of things will happen. First, some folks will give up on owning guns. They want to be lawful, but the laws make being law-abiding impossible. If that isn't disgustingly perverse, yet so unsurprising, I don't know what is. Second, some folks will leave the State and go live where legislatures and mayors and the like understand the Olde Parchment of 1787 (as I like to call it, since it's no longer a valid or functional Constitution).

Some people will scream for the State or Feds to preempt local laws and return uniformity. And in California, that will either never happen, or happen in such a way that restrictions become more severe. Either way, you can't win here.

Still, bad guys will steal guns, use them in crimes, and let the law-abiding gun owners pay the ultimate price -- much to the glee of the California Assembly, Senate, Governor, and Courts. The good guys are an easy target. "The law works" if you get convictions, regardless of the underlying context. DA's get to rack up a body county, Sheriff's get to keep the jails full and funded, and the collective bleat of "BUT WE DIIIIIIIIID SOMETHING!!!" will go on ad nauseum.

And let's not forget the Courts. In California, from the smallest Superior Court to the California Supreme Court, the benches are populated by simpletons or agendists, bought and paid for like any other politician. Yes, that's right. A member of the Bar is saying, flat out, 90% of the judges in California are intellectually dishonest graft-mongers with no sense of morals, let alone judicial ethics. The whole lot of them ought to be keel-hauled, but then that would be insulting to the keel of a fine ship. The rot continues up the vine to the 9th Circuit as well. Some of those judges are honest and good men and women. Again, maybe 10% of them take their oath as mandate. The other 90% just have an agenda to push, and they don't care what laws or rights get trampled in the process. They're not stupid people, they're just not the kind of people that deserve to sit on the bench. Unless it's a park bench, feeding the birds. That might be OK.

California is a corrupt and failed State. From the smallest city council, to the highest courts, nothing functions as it was meant to. You and I pay the price.